Mothers Mothering And Sex Work

Exploring the shared intersections of mothering, motherhood and sex work, Mothers, Mothering and Sex Work weaves together a range of voices from academic and sex-worker communities around the world. It features interdisciplinary contributions, scholarly essays, academic research, artwork, poetry, photography and experiential narratives. Notable among these are two modern masterpieces from literary leg- ends: “Voices,” a short story by Alice Munro and excerpts from Maya Angelou’s autobiography Gather Together in my Name. In the spirit of the adage “nothing about us without us,” Mothers, Mothering and Sex Work brings together unique and controversial viewpoints defying con- ventional wisdom to provide fresh insights into sex workers and their rights. Beginning with the political, legal and social context of sexuality and gender in Canada, the book’s focus widens to explore issues affect- ing sex workers worldwide.

"In a transnational, intersectional framework, this book discusses lived experiences of, legal and governmental frameworks affecting and theorizations of mothers and sex work. This is the first collaboration of its kind that is specifically focused on Canada and explores not only what is done to or about sex workers who are mothers under governmental regimes or exploitative traffickers in the context of political and social systems that continue to disempower women in general and mothers in particular but also the agencies of mothers who are sex workers and the mothers of those engaged in sex work. This book seeks to open a space for the study of connections between sex work and mother work. The text provides a venue for telling stories by sex workers who are or were mothers. As such, this collection goes beyond a study of how mothering in the context of sex work is regulated by law and society to look at the agencies and lived experiences of sex workers who are mothers. It also looks at discourses of sex work and motherhood as complementarily regulating the sexuality of women in a way that re-inscribes and maintains a patriarchal social order."--

Illustrating the myriad ways that mothers provide for their children—piloting airplanes, washing floors, or dancing at a strip club—this book is the first to depict a sex-worker parent. It provides an expanded notion of working mothers and challenges the idea that only some jobs result in good parenting. We’re reminded that, while every mama’s work looks different, every mama works to make their baby’s world better.

A provocative history that reveals how sex workers have been at the vanguard of social justice movements for the past fifty years while building a movement of their own that challenges our ideas about labor, sexuality, feminism, and freedom Documenting five decades of sex-worker activism, Sex Workers Unite is a fresh history that places prostitutes, hustlers, escorts, call girls, strippers, and porn stars in the center of America’s major civil rights struggles. Although their presence has largely been ignored and obscured, in this provocative history Melinda Chateauvert recasts sex workers as savvy political organizers—not as helpless victims in need of rescue. Even before transgender sex worker Sylvia Rivera threw a brick and sparked the Stonewall Riot in 1969, these trailblazing activists and allies challenged criminal sex laws and “whorephobia,” and were active in struggles for gay liberation, women’s rights, reproductive justice, union organizing, and prison abolition. Although the multibillion-dollar international sex industry thrives, the United States remains one of the few industrialized nations that continues to criminalize prostitution, and these discriminatory laws put workers at risk. In response, sex workers have organized to improve their working conditions and to challenge police and structural violence. Through individual confrontations and collective campaigns, they have pushed the boundaries of conventional organizing, called for decriminalization, and have reframed sex workers’ rights as human rights. Telling stories of sex workers, from the frontlines of the 1970s sex wars to the modern-day streets of SlutWalk, Chateauvert illuminates an underrepresented movement, introducing skilled activists who have organized a global campaign for self-determination and sexual freedom that is as multifaceted as the sex industry and as diverse as human sexuality.

An insatiable need for sex and love. Periods of overeating or starving. A pattern of unstable and painful relationships. Does this sound painfully familiar? Trauma counselor Kelly McDaniel has seen these traits over and over in clients who feel trapped in cycles of harmful behaviors-and are unable to stop. Many of us find ourselves stuck in unhealthy habits simply because we don't see a better way. With Mother Hunger, McDaniel helps women break the cycle of destructive behavior by taking a fresh look at childhood trauma and its lasting impact. In doing so, she destigmatizes the shame that comes with being under-mothered and misdiagnosed. McDaniel offers a healing path with powerful tools that include therapeutic interventions and lifestyle changes in service to healthy relationships. The constant search for mother love can be a lifelong emotional burden, but healing begins with knowing and naming what we are missing. McDaniel is the first clinician to identify Mother Hunger, which demystifies the search for love and provides the compass that each woman needs to end the struggle with achy, lonely emptiness, and come home to herself.

Mothers, Sex, and Sexuality talks about things not normally dared spoken out loud—the interconnectedness and conflict between our parental and sexual selves, the taboo of the sexual mother, and why it matters so much to shatter it. What is it about the sexual mother that is incompatible, and at times even disturbing? Why are we threatened by maternal sexuality? And what does this tell us about the structures of gender and power that govern our bodies? Mothers, Sex, and Sexuality presents a rigorous academic analysis of the myriad ways in which the sexual/maternal divide affects women, birthing people, and those of us who assume or are ascribed the title "mother". We examine the way we as mothers talk to our daughters about sex, the way we talk about sex in a cultural context, and the deafening silence around sex in a medical system that overlooks maternal sexuality. We return repeatedly to the impact of both Christianity and Hinduism on the mother as someone to be revered but tightly controlled. We embrace the lost eroticism of mothering and hail breastfeeding as a sexual maternal practice, arguing for a new, broader, feminist understanding of sexuality. We discuss the way fat mothers destabalise the heteronormative maternal model, the way kinky queers are reconfiguring the sexual/maternal divide through erotic role-play, and we explore the strange, intense, and romantic domestic relationship that springs up between mothers and nannies—two heterosexual women trapped together in a homoerotic triangulation of need and desire. In a titillating climax we revel in the sexual maternal as embodied through performance art, poetry, installations, and comedy, disrupting queer readings of bodies as we are invited to both fuck, and fuck with, the maternal. This book boldly provides both a challenge to the patriarchal constraints of motherhood and a racy road-map escape route out of the sexual-maternal dichotomy.

How the law harms sex workers—and what they want instead Do you have to endorse prostitution in order to support sex worker rights? Should clients be criminalized, and can the police deliver justice? In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, they make it clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement.

Explores the maternal experience from the mother's point of view. The book questions a society that has devalued and sentimentalized motherhood, and presents images of generative and creative women who are also mothers. It also discusses the portrayal of mothers in art, film and literature.

This book delves into this almost unchartered territory, documenting the lived experiences of sex workers in Bangladesh, considering the complex realities of their day-to-day lives and the ways they negotiate their working conditions and relationships. Despite being the most common form of female deviance and criminality globally, we know very little about sex work in Asia and the global south. Drawing on feminist frameworks, it shows that the experiences of sex workers vary widely depending on the ways they enter the sex trade, their modes of operation, and relationships with significant others. Towards a Southern Approach to Sex Work contributes to feminist scholarship on sex work, by offering a much needed southern perspective, drawing on culturally specific data. It argues that the lived experience of sex workers comprises both victimhood and agency, deception and resilience, and that it is the management of these relationships that enable sex works to avoid social marginalization and alienation. An accessible and compelling read, this will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, gender studies, south Asian studies, cultural studies, social theory and policy makers. In addition, it will engage all those interested in learning more about how the sex trade operates in Bangladesh.